Detours – a Week In and Out of the Hospital, Dahlias, and Feeling a Little Down While Wishing on Stars

Dinner Plate Pink Dahlia, my own garden

Detours – A Week In and Out of the Hospital, and Dahlias

Hello my friends! Since I last wrote, I had several unplanned detours into the hospital. I lost ten pounds in two days, ran 102 temperature, and endured two separate hospitals who took blood, gave me fluids and electrolyte bags, and let me tell you – stay away from hospitals during Covid if you can. The nurses were so inattentive as to seem terrified and understaffed. No visitors are allowed back – you may have heard about this – but the hospitals seem even more gloomy and terrifying than usual (and as you know, I’m something of a hospital veteran – having volunteered for five years in various wards at hospitals, including end-of-life wards, before starting, at 20, to pay way too many visits for my own health. First they were fighting a superbug – and then a complication from the drugs that treat the superbug – and then unexplained mysterious symptoms no one could explain. Not covid though! Just a reminder – there are things out there that can still make you sick enough to hospitalize you that are not covid, though covid is getting all the attention.

Anyway, spending time at the hospital is never pleasant, and was less pleasant this time than any time in recent memory, perhaps because I was also suffering and a bit out of it, which always makes bad things loom larger.

My care team – Glenn and Sylvia

When I got back from the hospital, and I was well enough to walk around my house, this pink dinner plate dahlia greeted me, as if it had been waiting for me. My care team – pictured to the left – Glenn and Sylvia – barely left my side as they made sure I drank broth and Pedialyte, and watched movies and documentaries (including a great one on Joan Didion, who, it turns out, was diagnosed with MS!)

These unplanned detours – which often seem to occur to me in August – derail my writing, my meager (during the plague, especially) life plans. But today I talked to a poet friend, my little brother, and caught up with my parents – a nice way to re-enter the human world, not the suspended animation of the medical care world. The dream (or nightmare) world of IVs and fever, of blood work and doctor exams.

Like going to and fro from the underworld, we need companions to help us re-arrive in the land of the living in one piece, recovering our spirits and reviving our bodies.

The circle of life, in typewriters

Feeling a Little Down, While Wishing on Falling Stars

Have you been watching the falling stars each night at midnight? I’ve been standing on my back porch, drawn to the red glow of Mars on the horizon, once in a while catching the quick winking of a falling star, wishing and wondering if I should even bother wishing. Is it naïve or child-like for me to even make wishes?

It’s been a tough year, definitely because of the plague-related disruptions, the tearing away of my comfort zones (oh, my bookstores!) and my support networks. Watching Americans do stupid things under a stupid president. Maybe also because I have two finished – or mostly finished – manuscripts – still looking for homes, maybe because both times I returned home from the hospital there was a rejection waiting for me (both places having taken a year to get back to me).

Field of flowers in Woodinville, sunflowers and dahlias

I won’t deny feeling down when I read about Trump’s attack on the post office (though I was a little cheered by Biden’s choice of Kamala Harris as VP, for whom I voted for Presidential candidate). I feel down when I read about coronavirus deaths, and I couldn’t help but absorb a little fear from those gray-faced nurses at the hospital, curt and perfunctory in their fear. I feel, again, betrayed by my frail body that manages to be so sick I cannot control it. I feel that while all my writer friends are celebrating triumphs, I continue to fail. I know this may be temporary – perhaps a bit of gloom traced to the IV fluid in my veins, to my still sore arms (they couldn’t get a blood draw the third time, and my IV had to go in different places three different times). How to separate the physical from the mental and emotional?

I will quote here a bit from Joan Didion’s “The White Album,” her neurologist’s advice after her diagnosis (after many tests) of MS. “Lead a simple life,” the neurologist advised. “Not that it makes any difference we know about.” Ah, MS advice hasn’t changed a bit!

I try to find the beauty in the simple things around me – birds and the flowers of late August, sunflowers and dahlias. Tonight I will go out again after midnight, to watch for meteors flashing across the sky. I will probably still make a wish.

Down Days, Up Days, Dog Days, Poetry Manuscripts Going Out into the World, and the Magic of Selkies

Hot Air Balloon, August Morning

Down Days, Up Days, Dog Days

Hello my friends. How are you holding up? Yesterday I felt okay – well enough to go out in my neighborhood and photograph dahlias – and today I was sick enough to almost go to the emergency room. This is the same infection I’ve been fighting off for a month, by the way, that keeps rearing its ugly head. It is confusing, head-spinning, frustrating – I so want to be well, even well in a coroanvirus-based world.

It reminds me that August, for me, often has its up days (represented by this hot air balloon that descended across from our house this last week first thing in the morning) and its down days (represented by the waning Grain Moon.) The Dog days of August.

Waning Full Grain Moon

If I look back at previous Augusts, I’ve been in the hospital for various problems a lot – I mean, maybe it’s the heat, the waning summer, summer germ theory – so I can’t be shocked, though I’ve never had this particular kind of superbug infection before. The Dog Days indeed.

My coping mechanisms for previous illness-filled Augusts include trying to focus on the things I can do and enjoy – watching movies (recently, loved the quirky woman-writer-centered comedy “I Used to Go Here,” the first twenty minutes of which I swear was stolen from my own first book tour experiences), listening to audiobooks, dipping into poetry, photographing things when I get the chance. Not focusing on my lack of ability to do my normal things (even in these highly abnormal time) or focusing on my lack of productivity. Not focusing on possible mortality issues (this particular illness has a 6-8 percent mortality rate, higher than coronavirus!)

Red dahlias with a sunflower background

Finding Beauty – and Sending Poetry Manuscripts Out Into the World

So yesterday I went out into my neighborhood of Woodinville and found small u-pick gardens and took pictures of dahlias and sunflowers. I even took a picture in one small garden, because I want to be reminded that I live in a world surrounded by beauty.

Similarly, I’ve been taking a partial try at The Sealey Challenge (because not every day is an “up” day where I feel well enough to read, I’m not reading a poetry book every single day in August, which is the challenge, but I’m trying to pick up a book on the days when I can.) And one thing about reading more poetry, and reading widely, from lots of publishers, is being introduced to all types of writing, and voices, and you notice covers and fonts, and you start thinking about how what you read influences your own work, and how your voice fit with with other voices of your time.

Glenn and I in a u-pick garden in Woodinville, with dahlias and sunflowers

So how do we get the bravery, the gumption, to send out our own voices, our hard work, out into the world, knowing that most of the time we will be rejected despite the $25 fee, with barely a note, that even when our books come out, how much attention will they receive? Probably very little, probably not showered with awards or reviewed in the New York Times (like the writer in “I Used to Go Here” is – maybe the least realistic thing in the movie.) But we do it anyway.

Even on days that we don’t feel our best, when we don’t feel optimistic in the future at all, we take the chance, we make the effort.

Why do I take pictures of flowers? Because I want evidence of something, memories, visible ghosts. Maybe books are something similar. Our own living ghost pages, out there in the universe.

Baby Seal

The Magic of Selkies – Thanks to Terri Windling

A big thank you to Terri Windling for featuring my poem, “The Selkie Wife’s Daughter,” on her wonderful blog, Myth and Moor. That poem, by the way, was written in Sapphic lyrics, a form I love but don’t write in very often.

There is something magical about seals, isn’t there? I’ve always thought so. Otters and seals. The closest I ever live to them was in Port Townsend. I love foxes too, more of a woodsy animal. If I was a shape-shifter, I’d definitely choose one of those forms. Yes, it’s something I’ve given thought to. Maybe we need a little magical thinking right now. Hell, if not in the middle of a pandemic, when can we?

Finding Inspiration Where You Need It, Looming Messages from the Outside World

Typewriter in an Apple Tree

Finding Inspiration Where You Need It

Have you been finding yourself, amidst the stress of the news reports and quarantine and coronavirus and mask debates, exhausted, unable to even think about writing or even worse, sending out your writing? Because I have been right there with you this week, my friend. I have been depressed, anxious. I woke up crying one morning. I’ve been sick – nothing new, but this bug has been tough to shake, and the treatment for it is chock-full of unpleasant side effects. Not to complain – I’ve probably been sicker – but it has just been one of those weeks. And on Facebook, friends posting about surgeries, chemo, losing loved ones – it should put things in perspective, but it just feels like misery overload.

In isolation, in pain, in illness, in loss, in misery – are we capable of finding the inspiration where we need it?

This is why I took this incongruous picture of the typewriter in the apple tree – are we looking for the unexpected to jar us awake?

My back porch, in bloom: view from my bedroom

Where do you find inspiration? I often look to nature – though I’m not often thought of as a nature poet. Here’s the view from my bedroom, complete with birdfeeders, phlox, roses, sunflowers, dahlias, and probably some other flowers.

I sometimes find inspiration in conversations with friends and family, sometimes from books, sometimes from music or television. I also consider these forms of consolation, in times of need. Our routine and regular support systems have been disrupted. Previous sources of inspiration: going to galleries or museums, travel, concerts, get-togethers with friends – if you are immune compromised like me or someone in your family is, seem as infeasible as walks on the moon. So you, like me, may spend more time gardening, reading, watching movies, on the phone with your family and friends. I spend more time noticing small changes in the season, the different birds who visit with us. Photography for me is a way of noticing. This summer has been pretty mild, so I spend time sitting on my back porch, jut observing, watching bees on lavender, woodpeckers bobbing, hummingbirds buzzing around each other, the occasional hot air balloon. Those who are lucky enough to live close to water drive to the ocean, or the lake, some drive to the mountains. I’ve stayed close to home by necessity, but my home has plenty of opportunity for discover – a  tiny nanobunny when I go to water the lavender plants, an immature finch on the sunflowers.

Anna’s Hummingbird, seated

Messages from the Outside World Loom Larger

Don’t messages from the outside world loom larger these days? A Zoom meeting with a doctor, an e-mail rejection in your in-box, real-life physical mail? Though our current evil president and his goons are trying to throttle the post office right when most of us are relying on it more than usual, a surprise in the mail – or a surprise package from a loved one – can delight us more than usual. In Washington State, we even vote my mail. (And no, we do not have record problems with fraud.)

These little messages from the outside world can hold more portent than they might have a few months ago. This can mean a rejection has more impact, or that a postcard can carry more weight. I’m trying to avoid using Facebook (because of their ethical decisions and misinformation problems, along with thinking it might be detrimental for mental health in a way Instagram and Twitter are not) so I end up spending more time in the physical world.  Physical objects like books and magazines get more attention, and I want them to be beautiful and encouraging. I being in spring-scented sweet peas in a jar, cut dahlias in cases around the house, the occasional rose in a bud case. There is some mythology that hummingbirds were messengers from the gods. If so, I hope they bring good news. We could use it.

I’m also trying to support the businesses I love (and want to survive) with e-commerce as much as possible, whether that’s buying a dress or a book or a box of produce from my local farmer’s stands (here’s a link to 21 Acres, my favorite in  Woodinville, and Tonnemaker Farm stand, which also has a beautiful u-pick garden). I also want to support visual artists and other writers when I can. I’m not wealthy, but I feel like coughing up a few dollars for a literary magazine subscription or someone’s new book might help keep artists and publishers alive, and maybe deliver that hopeful or positive note that someone might need.

Because I am a writer with two poetry manuscripts circulating, waiting for good news on either one is a kind of excruciating hobby. I agonize over title and organization, whether to include new poems, whether to take out old ones. I feel like putting time towards writing and revising is at least a positive place to put some of my frustrated, homebound energies. I wish I had a big “yes” from the universe right now, from a dream publisher. I hope I get over this superbug soon so I can get a little way back to “normal.”

I hope you have good news in the e-mail inbox or the post office too. I hope your messengers from the universe will be kind.

Summer is for Revision, Phone Calls to Catch Up with Writer Friends, and Twitter’s #PoetParty Returns

Sylvia with roses and pink typewriter

Summer Is For Revision

I’ve read that many writers are stressing about not writing as much right now as they think they should (what with still being mostly constrained from fun distractions, like offices, travel, parties, etc. but still in the middle of a poorly controlled pandemic) but for me, summer is a natural time for revision. I don’t write as many poems in the summer, typically (and it also tends to be my worst season for health – unfortunately, this July has proved no exception – I caught a superbug during my root canal AND just got tested for coronavirus as well, because why have just one thing?)

And the long days without many places open for submissions make me anxious to feel like I’m doing something productive (that pernicious word) with my writing. I’ve been keeping in touch with some writer friends across the country by phone (I hate Zoom, FYI) and bringing back the Twitter #PoetParty for a quarantine special this Sunday, the 19th, at 6 PM Pacific. Hopefully, I can help others not feel so discouraged and isolated. (Hey, besides the pandemic, the news had been really rough lately. To ignore everything wrong right now, you’d have to be asleep all the time.) More on that later.

Pink flower-lover vignette with pink typewriter

So besides photographing my cat and flowers with my typewriter, I’ve been spending  hours looking at the drafty drafts of poems I’ve written since January, looking harder at my two book manuscripts in terms of organization and order. It’s been four years since my last book, and I’m getting a little anxious about getting another book into the world, but I do want them to be the best books possible.

I’ve had a couple of writers take a look at my newest manuscript for feedback (which I recommend if you’re feeling stuck and unable to “see” the manuscript anymore), and I was surprised by a couple of things, including that I’d been writing accidental sonnets. Anyway, I also don’t recommend futzing with two books at a time if you can help it. I think the older manuscript is pretty polished, it’s the newer one that still needs some reshaping, but keeping track of both in the same spreadsheet is eye-crossing. I got an encouraging note from a great publisher, but had to really work to track down which manuscript they were responding to! Not good, Jeannine.

Purple phlox and first Swallowtail butterfly of the season

Phone Calls to Catch Up with Writer Friends

So, I try to avoid Zoom – like many neurodivergent people (if you read this blog, you know I have MS), Zoom really messes with my neurons, giving me headaches and leaving me physically wiped out, like I finished a boxing match. So I’ve been using the old-fashioned telephone – that’s right, audience, who I can hear collectively gasping, not text, or Slack – to keep up with far-flung friends.

I think sometimes that if writers talked together more, the writing world would seem less intimidating to navigate, more friendly. I was telling one friend in Virginia that if I could get ten of my female writing friends from all over together at a table to just talk about writing and publishing for an hour or two, it would be better than any book you could could buy. I am lucky to have a lot of great friends, but many of them live far away, and even the ones that live close, I don’t get to see physically very often (especially since the quarantine). So the phone has been a wonderful way to stay connected, check in on folks, and hopefully not just encourage others but simply close the distance between. Blogging is another way to check in on people, but often we aren’t as vulnerable or honest on social media outlets, so phone calls all the way get my vote.

First sunflower

The Twitter #PoetParty is Back, 2020 Style!

So you might remember I used to help moderate something called the #poetparty, which was just a bunch of poets getting together, talking writing, rejection, calls for submission, and sharing good news. I had to stop for a while because I was getting overwhelmed with life stuff, but I think it’s time to bring it back, this time with a positive focus on living as a writer during coronavirus. I also feel like Twitter, versus Facebook, should be the social media I use more, as well as Instagram, where I share pictures and rarely get in a flame war about wearing masks (unlike, say, Facebook). Twitter can be full of hackers and trolls, sure, but it can be a great place to hear literary news and meet new writers who may become real life friends one day.

So, the next Twitter party is July 19th, 6 PM Pacific. Bring questions, complains, good news, calls for submissions. Bring your book recommendations. It lasts for just about an hour and is always a fun time.